December 27, 2000

So, remember how I mentioned that various people in my life not only think I should be in therapy, but are shocked and dismayed to find out that I am not, nor have I been for the better part of my life, in therapy? Well, I'm starting to think that maybe they have a point.

Why else do I have panic attacks about writing or not writing? Oh, wait. I don't have panic attacks. I just think it is better to write nothing than to write crap, and I am so afraid of writing crap that I write nothing, which, as I have just stated, is a much, much better result. Only then I see that other people write crap, and the world doesn't end. In fact, they get paid for this crap. And are happy and successful. Whereas I am unemployed (yes, still) and more or less content with my unhappiness. Only more less than more.

Okay, so what I'm trying to say is, I got dumped a few weeks ago. Only it wasn't really dumped, because we weren't really dating. Only we were. But only for two weeks. Which was really only one week, and then a week of unreturned phone calls and weird tones of voice and empty reassurances and casual and probably subconscious insensitivity. And then the phone call. And then it was over.

I mention this a) because it's been on my mind on and off recently, more on than off, and I've kind of not wanted to write about it for various reasons, not the least of which is that he has been known to peruse the pages of this site on occasion, but the more I try not to write about something I viscerally need to write about, the more I am blocked when trying to write about anything else, and b) he is yet another person who finds it some sort of sin against all things good and holy that I am not shelling out a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to have someone tell me that I have some issues I have to work out with my family and hey, I really need to learn to love myself.

That said, I suddenly no longer want to write about my inner struggle with the wonderful world of therapy, but rather the…the…the guy who had the nerve to dump my sweet and supple ass two weeks after he had sweet and supple contact with said ass (which, again, was really only one week). (Note: In the previous sentence, the following words are meant to convey wholly different concepts than originally intended: 1) sweet; 2) supple; 3) ass; 4) contact.)

When I first met him, I was on an interview for a job that didn't exist. Someone was thought to be quitting, but that thought turned out to be erroneous. He was working at the company where the nonexistent job resided, and he spoke to me while I waited for the opportunity to waste my time. He was nice and friendly and kinda cute. These thoughts passed fleetingly through my head, but still, they did pass.

A week later, he called me to ask if I could fill in for him for a few weeks while he was away. He'd gotten my number from his boss, because she said that I did well on the proofreading test. (Sigh…can I just tell you how incomprehensible I find it that anybody does poorly on those things? It's just not that much of an ego boost to have it confirmed that I know how to spell "weird.") I said yes, sure, I will fill in for you. I have no job. I'm easy.

I met him at work on a Saturday so he could go over how things were done. Again, nice, friendly, cute, etc. And this time, funny. Quietly, mellowly funny, but funny nonetheless. I thought a very small and tiny thought. It was a very short thought, though, because when he started to do some weird back stretch, I asked him if he was into yoga, and he said he'd just recently started doing it, because his girlfriend…

He said something else after that, but I'd stopped listening

Cut to the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. He'd been back for a week or two, and I still had his keys to the office. I figured he'd get in touch with me to retrieve them, but so far, he hadn't. I was sort of hoping that he would forget about the keys, because I liked having them. I could sneak into the office in the middle of the night and use their printer and fax machine. Not that I would ever have the balls to do that, but I liked the idea that I could, if I wanted to.

So, Tuesday. The red light is blinking on my answering machine. I have a message. It is from him. Hi, he says. He's back from L.A. He hopes things are going well, he says. He needs his keys back. Maybe we could meet for coffee on Friday, if I'm in town. Give him a call back, he says.

Now, I am aware that he has a girlfriend, but there was something in his voice. Something in the phrase "meet for coffee on Friday if you're in town." That "if you're in town" bit. It just…I swear, it sounded like he was kinda sorta vaguely asking me on a date.

Or, alternatively, asking me for his keys back.

I called him back, left a message. He called me back, and we talked. Briefly, easily, without even a tinge of awkwardness. I was giving his keys back. No reason to be awkward. We arranged to meet at a café in our neighborhood at 4:00 p.m. (he lives six short north/south blocks from me), and we hung up.

I did not for one second stop ruminating on this date/not a date question until I saw him. Even then, I did not stop ruminating. The rumination only ended after I had left him that night.

As per usual, I am getting ahead of myself.

So, I met him for coffee at 4 o'clock, and I gave him back his keys immediately, so if that was all he wanted, he could've gotten his coffee to go and been outta there at 4:06. However, odd as this may sound, he stayed. We talked, he found me devastatingly charming, I found him tolerable. No, actually, he held his own with me quite well. Eventually, he decided he was hungry, and asked if I was. I wasn't, seeing as it was the day after Thanksgiving and I had already eaten far more leftovers than anyone has a right to eat, but I figured, either I don't eat now, and I eat later, or I eat now, and don't eat later, and if I eat now, this date/nondate will continue, which would be nice, so I might as well just bloody well eat now. After much discussion, we decided on Ethiopian food. He suggested it, and I leapt at the idea, because I have been all about Ethiopian food as of late. We shook on it, and he said, "Oh, isn't that nice?" I would later learn that that is a thing he does often. At first, it struck me as sort of candyass, but, as is often the case with the irritating habits of boys who put any sort of effort into me at all, I eventually found it pretty endearing.

As coffee turned into dinner, dinner turned into a movie, and the movie turned into drinks. It was pretty clear that we were both having a good time, but, dense as I am, I still wasn't sure if it was a date or not. I mean, I thought it was, but I wasn't sure about his take on it.

He walked me home, we didn't kiss, and as I walked up the stairs to my apartment, that is when the rumination finally ended.

It was totally a date.

Yeah, so, he called me the next day to tell me a Knicks game was on. Oh, the points he scored with that. (Easy joke: Too bad the Knicks couldn't do the same.) On Tuesday, my botched effort to get tickets to the circus resulted in us seeing some wacky sketch comedy troupe (is there any other kind?) and having a really nice dinner, at which point, when I asked him "what [he] want[ed] from me," (born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I was), he launched into a horrifically complimentary monologue about how, when I met him that day to have him show me around the office, he thought I was "really great," and he was sad he was dating someone at the time, because he really wanted to ask me out. When he called me from L.A. (did I mention he called me from L.A.?), ostensibly to make sure things were going okay at work, he was really just calling to talk to me. He didn't, he got my machine, but still…he called.

When he got back, he didn’t want to call me until after he'd ended things with his girlfriend. This also scored him big points. He did need his keys back, but that, he said, was basically a very utilitarian excuse to pick up the phone.

He went on and on about how funny and pretty and nice (nice!) I was, and I was blushing and getting all goopy and feeling so thankful that someone finally got it, damn it. And then we took the subway home, and he sat really close to me and brushed the hair out of my eyes and just looked at me, and I felt for all the world like the lead in one of those quirky little romantic comedies that usually stars Meg Ryan or…well, they all star Meg Ryan. But you get the idea. It was just a shade or two off from perfect.

I kissed him for the first time that night, on the steps in front of my apartment. He was on the sidewalk, I was one step up. Three times, we kissed. One very awkward kiss. One, a little tentative. And one, amazingly enough, pretty damn nice.

I saw him three more times. Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. We ate Thai food and made out. We ate Indonesian food and made out. But in between the eating and making out, he saw me in a less than flattering light. We played backgammon, and he was infinitely better than I was. I have never quite shaken the bad-loser vibe I acquired as a child, so I got a little cranky the third time I lost. Actually, I got cranky the first time, but it wasn't because I lost, it was because he was telling me how I should move. But still, it was just a game.

And then, on Saturday, I thought he was supposed to show up at 5:30, and he thought he was supposed to show up at 6:00. So, at 5:45, when he wasn't there, and hadn't called, and he wasn't home, visions of the three-hour wait for Harris danced in my head. So, again, I was a little cranky. And hungry. And that never helps. But…but…I wasn't evil to him. I've been evil to people in my day, believe you me, and to him, I was far from evil. He seemed to like me so much, I figured I could be myself with him. My imperfect, self-deprecating, sarcastic, other-deprecating self.

Sunday, I think, was the last straw. I was working all day at the place where I met him -- I was now on a list of freelancers to call, and they'd called. The woman I was working with had to leave early, and they needed someone to fill in for her. Of course, he was the first person I suggested. So, he showed up, and we worked together. Wow, what a colossally bad idea. While there are many elements of grammar and punctuation that no one argues about, there are certain things that are more or less open to interpretation. Is a comma really necessary there? Should "with" be capitalized in a headline? "A historical event" or "an historical event"? This is where stylesheets (or style sheets) come in dreadfully handy, and this handy item was exactly what this company lacked. So, as idiotic as it may sound, we were fighting over commas and capitalization. Or, rather, I was. I didn't really care one way or the other what we did, so long as we both did the same thing. And, honestly, I think I was embarrassed when he would ask me "why did you put a comma there?" and I didn’t have an answer. Also, I had been there since 10:00 a.m., and we didn't end up leaving until one in the morning. Did I mention it was an ad agency? Do I have to?

So, yeah, we took a cab home, my stop was first, and I kissed him goodbye and went upstairs.

That, my friends, was the last time I saw him.

I called him the next morning with a question about the receipt for the cab. That was Monday. Nothing Monday night. Nothing Tuesday night. Nothing Wednesday night. He had been all kinds of attentive the previous week -- calling me without provocation, leaving messages while I was at work, and eager to arrange the next time we would see each other. So, this was odd. I called him late on Wednesday, expecting to get the machine, but he answered. The first thing that went through my head was, if he's home, why isn't he calling me? We talked, but he sounded weird, and I told him so. He said he was in the midst of being sued, and I figured that was more than enough reason for him to sound weird. Also, this explained his preoccupation with Things Other Than Me. I felt silly for imagining the worst (because I had been, ever since Monday night) and for crying at my desk that afternoon. He told me he had to go to court the next night, but he would call me after it was over. I said, I actually said, "If you don't call me, I'll be sad." And he assured me that he would, in fact, call me. Things seemed tentatively okay. And, really, nothing awful had happened. Of course I was overreacting. Silly, silly, not-perceptive-at-all me.

So, Thursday, there was a Knicks game. My options were to go home, watch the game, and sit by the phone, or go to the bar where my cute bartender works, watch the game, and not sit by the phone. I, in an unprecedented flash of good judgment, decided to seek out the cute bartender.

This is where we do not discuss how many times I checked my machine while watching the game with the cute bartender.

I get home around midnight. No message. I stay up to watch Letterman. I check my email. I am both surprised and not surprised that he has not called. I go to bed, thinking perhaps I will get a very late-night message from him in the morning. I wake up. I have no such message.

Friday morning, I am at work (I am freelancing sporadically), and I make the ultimate sacrifice. I email him. We have never emailed each other. It was part of the beauty of our relationship that the way in which we met had absolutely nothing to do with the Internet, nor with this website (I stupidly gave him the URL before he went to L.A., back when he had the girlfriend, and so, I thought, what the hell?). I accidentally remembered his address when I saw him check his email at his apartment. Have I mentioned that we had already been to each other's apartments? And that I met his cat? And that he spoke of making me dinner sometime, and invited me to a Christmas party?

So, now I am frantically checking my answering machine and my email, all while I am supposedly working. I am emailing with friends, all of who are part of a Greek chorus of "don't worry" and "everything's fine." They are sweet. They mean well. They are saying the same thing I would say. They don't have a fucking clue.

I call him before I leave work, not mentioning the fact that he didn't call me the night before, not making him feel guilty, not overreacting. I leave a simple message saying that I hoped court went okay, and did he want to maybe catch a movie that night? I give him my work number, but I don’t have voice mail, and I was on the phone pretty much nonstop for work, so when I check my messages one last time before I leave, and have a message from him, I believe him when he says he tried to call me but the line was busy.

He says he has to work (he works nights sometimes) until 10:00, but will call me after that. Okay, I say, trying my best to believe him. I leave work in tears, wondering what the fuck is going on. I contemplate going to a movie, but I am really hungry and craving a chocolate milkshake, so that is what I do instead. I go to the diner and get a chocolate milkshake. I go to the diner where I have never had anything but the thickest, chocolatiest, most satisfying milkshakes, and receive the thinnest, most watery, thoroughly inadequate milkshake I have ever had. It's all milk, no shake. It flows up the straw way too easily, and with far too little suction on my part. I want to send it back, but I'm crying again, and I just don't want people to think I'm crying over a crappy milkshake. So I go home and watch pathetic Friday night television. And then I answer the phone. Because it rings. At 10:30 p.m., it rings.

I'm very composed. I've calmed down, eaten a lot, and convinced my self that I am insane, nothing bad is going on, and boy, maybe I really do need therapy. He sounds normal. I continue to not mention how he didn't call me the night before. I sound normal. We joke around. We laugh. Things seem vaguely okay. And then…

And then.

And then, he says, "Hey, Anne, guess what?" And I know. I totally know. I absolutely and unequivocally know. "What?" I ask. "I, uh…I don't think we should see each other anymore." Here, I pause. "Really?" Beat. "Huh." Beat beat. "How come?"

I am not crying. I actually feel relieved. This whole week, I knew something was up. I knew it in my gut. And everyone was telling me I was making something out of nothing. Everyone was trying to make me feel better. Everyone was sure I was going to feel like an idiot when I finally talked to him. Well, I don't feel like an idiot. I feel brilliant. I feel preternaturally perceptive. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I feel vindicated.

"I just don’t think we're compatible, " he says. "Huh. Really?" This is pretty much all I say. "And, well, you know how you use humor as a defense mechanism?" I do, indeed. "While I find it charming, I feel like it's a barrier to us really connecting."

At this point, I say something along the lines of, we've only known each other two weeks, maybe after three weeks, I'll lower my defenses. And I wonder if making jokes really is the worst thing in the world. I mean, wifebeaters have a better track record than I have. What is that about? But I don't say that. I simply tell him that I'm sad, but of course I can't talk him out of how he feels. I tell him that I think he is being a tad premature, but I don't push it. I don't want to have to convince people to date me.

He implies none-too-subtly that he thinks I should be in therapy, and the fact that I am not also plays a part in his decision to throw away the best thing he will ever have. At this point, I think I laugh and look around for the hidden camera.

And so, we hang up. He says something like, "I'll talk to you later, Anne," but clearly means just the opposite. And I am sad. Relieved, liberated, but sad. And, to my surprise, I cry a hell of a lot. He was not perfect, and, honestly, there were things about him, about us, that I could already see as being deal breakers, but…two weeks, man. Right before Christmas. Talk about lifting someone up just so the vultures can get a better angle at their vital organs. I cried for the loss of the hopes I had raised. The expectations I allowed myself to have. The holiday parties I envisioned myself having a date for.

He's not a bad guy, though. At least he called me. At least he told me what was going on, instead of just never speaking to me again. For that, I am thankful. And, if nothing else, we had a near-perfect first date. I mean, he got all moon-eyed at me and everything. And we voted for the All-Star Team in the lobby of the theater (we saw The Cell, which I think I can say with complete confidence was a movie made entirely around Jennifer Lopez' custom-made red bodysuit -- ribbed, for his pleasure).

And we kissed really well together.

So, y'know, there's that.

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